第103章

Nekhludoff felt more at case with the boys than with the grown-up people, and he began talking to them as they went along. The little one with the pink shirt stopped laughing, and spoke as sensibly and as exactly as the elder one.

"Can you tell me who are the poorest people you have got here?" asked Nekhludoff.

"The poorest? Michael is poor, Simon Makhroff, and Martha, she is very poor."

"And Anisia, she is still poorer; she's not even got a cow. They go begging," said little Fedka.

"She's not got a cow, but they are only three persons, and Martha's family are five," objected the elder boy.

"But the other's a widow," the pink boy said, standing up for Anisia.

"You say Anisia is a widow, and Martha is no better than a widow," said the elder boy; "she's also no husband."

"And where is her husband?" Nekhludoff asked.

"Feeding vermin in prison," said the elder boy, using this expression, common among the peasants.

"A year ago he cut down two birch trees in the land-lord's forest," the little pink boy hurried to say, "so he was locked up; now he's sitting the sixth month there, and the wife goes begging. There are three children and a sick grandmother," he went on with his detailed account.

"And where does she live?" Nekhludoff asked.

"In this very house," answered the boy, pointing to a hut, in front of which, on the footpath along which Nekhludoff was walking, a tiny, flaxen-headed infant stood balancing himself with difficulty on his rickety legs.

"Vaska! Where's the little scamp got to?" shouted a woman, with a dirty grey blouse, and a frightened look, as she ran out of the house, and, rushing forward, seized the baby before Nekhludoff came up to it, and carried it in, just as if she were afraid that Nekhludoff would hurt her child.

This was the woman whose husband was imprisoned for Nekhludoff's birch trees.

"Well, and this Matrona, is she also poor?" Nekhludoff asked, as they came up to Matrona's house.

"She poor? No. Why, she sells spirits," the thin, pink little boy answered decidedly.

When they reached the house Nekhludoff left the boys outside and went through the passage into the hut. The hut was 14 feet long.

The bed that stood behind the big stove was not long enough for a tall person to stretch out on. "And on this very bed," Nekhludoff thought, "Katusha bore her baby and lay ill afterwards." The greater part of the hut was taken up by a loom, on which the old woman and her eldest granddaughter were arranging the warp when Nekhludoff came in, striking his forehead against the low doorway. Two other grandchildren came rushing in after Nekhludoff, and stopped, holding on to the lintels of the door.

"Whom do you want?" asked the old woman, crossly. She was in a bad temper because she could not manage to get the warp right, and, besides, carrying on an illicit trade in spirits, she was always afraid when any stranger came in.

"I am--the owner of the neighbouring estates, and should like to speak to you."

"Dear me; why, it's you, my honey; and I, fool, thought it was just some passer-by. Dear me, you--it's you, my precious," said the old woman, with simulated tenderness in her voice.

"I should like to speak to you alone," said Nekhludoff, with a glance towards the door, where the children were standing, and behind them a woman holding a wasted, pale baby, with a sickly smile on its face, who had a little cap made of different bits of stuff on its head.

"What are you staring at? I'll give it you. Just hand me my crutch," the old woman shouted to those at the door.

"Shut the door, will you!" The children went away, and the woman closed the door.